


Why I Lied to You

by Garonne



Category: due South
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-12
Updated: 2013-06-22
Packaged: 2017-12-08 07:30:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/758719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Garonne/pseuds/Garonne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's 1930, and Ray Kowalski is undercover. </p><p>Contains bootleggers, Al Capone, adventures on the frozen river Detroit... and a rather unusual Canadian Customs Officer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to ride_4ever for being kind enough to beta-read this!
> 
> Posted as one very short chapter and one very long chapter for Reasons. (In other words, dividing things up into chapters is too fiddly...)

.. .. ..

1\. Rain

Me and the other two goons reached Detroit early in the afternoon. One of them was called Wojek, the other Pietrucci. They spend the entire drive over from Chicago making the lamest sort of dirty jokes and doing my head in. I sat in the back seat, trying to remember why the hell I'd signed up for this gig in the first place.

Detroit was covered in a grimy, gray layer of snow. We spent the rest of the afternoon on a tour of the string of speakeasies Capone controlled in the city. Pietrucci was the spokesman out of our little trio. Wojek and I were just muscle in a suit. We stood around with our arms folded, reminding the guys of the respect they owed the Big Boss. By the end of it, my shoes were soaked in slush and I was sick to death of the sight of sticky floors and grubby booths. Bars are nasty, crummy places by the light of day. 

In the early evening we took a short hop across the river into Canada.

Windsor was just as gray, just as slushy, and just as cold. This side of the river, the idea wasn't to threaten people but to butter them up. We were talking to Capone's Canadian allies here.

Last stop on Pietrucci's list was a sleazy little gin joint on the docks, where he could get cozy with an old comrade-in-arms from his New Jersey days and me and Wojek could get plastered before heading back to Detroit to flop for the night.

It was late evening when we got to the place. Pietrucci's buddy was sitting in a corner with a group of Blaise Diesbourg's men and two guys from the Customs Office down by the river.

I knew them all: Dubois, MacInerney and Wilson, my Canadian comrades in crime, and Fraser and Campbell, the Customs Officers. The last two were in uniform. It's clear as cut glass who runs the town when two guys from the Canadian Department of National Revenue can sit and drink in a public place with known bootleggers, and in uniform to boot. Not that things were much different in Chicago, of course. Just saying.

So we all squeezed into the booth and I ended up next to the Customs Officer, the younger one, Benny Fraser.

I'd seen him around the place fairly often over the past six months. He'd even stamped a couple of clearance documents for me, back in the fall when I'd spent a few weeks on the ground rum-running in Detroit. I didn't have any other direct contact with him: Diesbourg's guys were responsible for paying off Customs and Excise on the Canadian side. He was often around the bars, though, which made me think he must be pally with some of Diesbourg's men.

He always drew my attention for some reason, sitting there in the corner nursing a lemonade, always listening and always keeping his mouth shut. Okay, I say for some reason, but there was a pretty damn obvious reason. The guy was a looker.

I had this thing going where I sat in bars drinking Canadian beer, laughing at jokes I hadn't even been listening to, and sneaking looks at dishy Benny Fraser every so often. He wass like, the original spit-and-polish guy, all buttoned up in some sort of navy-blue double-breasted thing, his uniform cap on his lap so that no one would splash beer on it. He sat so still and calm-looking it made me want to do something stupid. I dunno, tickle him or something.

He was sitting with his head turned towards me now, and a sort of civility-demands-I-pay-attention-to-you look plastered across his face. I realized I'd been staring back at him. About time I said something, probably.

"Officer Fraser, isn't it?"

"Good evening, Mr. Komarek," he said, and it was way weirder being called mister than Komarek. I'd been Komarek for a year now. I'd a feeling the back-office boys in the Bureau of Prohibition chose it because they thought it would be easy for me to remember. Not too different from Kowalski, you know? I got the feeling they didn't have a very high opinion of the intelligence of the average Chicago cop.

Fraser still had his eyes fixed on me, and I realized it was my turn to say something.

I remembered someone telling me the guy only drank lemonade. I jerked my head at the glass of clear sparkling liquid on the table in front of him.

"So you're a prohibitionist, then?"

It was a lame joke, and Fraser didn't laugh.

"Of course not," he said, in a voice that made it sound like _Of course I am_.

I'd got the rest of the table laughing, though, and the other Customs Officer said, "Fraser's dry as a whistle, and he's got a poker up his ass to go with it."

Fraser was wearing a smile so fake I should have been arresting him under the Trades Descriptions Act. I got the feeling this was a long-standing joke. I shouldn't have said anything in the first place.

I spat out another crack, about lousy Canadian whiskey this time. MacInerney didn't like that too much, and the conversation rolled on round to other subjects.

I turned my head, and found Fraser looking at me again.

"You a Windsor native, then?" I said, half apology and half conversation-opener.

He shook his head, but I didn't get anything more out of him on the subject. "And you were born and raised in Chicago, if I'm not mistaken?"

"Uh huh. How'd you know?"

"I can hear it."

"You can?"

I guess having a guy from Chicago go undercover as a guy from Chicago is a smart move, with people like Officer Fraser around.

He started telling me all about the distinctive 'ah' and the use of stops instead of fricatives, whatever the hell that meant. He was really into it, like he got off on talking about stuff like that. I wasn't exactly following, just sitting there drinking my beer and enjoying the show. His face had switched from wooden soldier to earnest schoolmaster. He was leaning closer to me now, instead of sitting bolt upright, and his eyes had come alive. I was mostly watching his mouth though. He was twisting his lips into exaggerated shapes, giving me examples of different pronunciations. He had nice lips, pink and wet with lemonade. He even brought his hands into play every now and them, emphasizing some particularly important point about my use of the tongue when I said the word 'bottle'. I sat there with my tongue currently tucked firmly away behind my lips, getting pleasantly warm inside.

Then Wojek had to go and interrupt us.

"Komarek was there too. Hey, Komarek, tell them about that broad with the green poodle."

"What?"

Wojek looked surprised. Guess I'd snapped at him.

"You know, the dame we saw in Cicero, the crazy one. Come on man, they don't believe me." 

"You just don't got a honest face like me, buddy," I said.

So I threw out the story, and the conversation moved on.

As soon as I could, I snuck another glance at Fraser, and found that he was looking at me again. It must have been something like the third time that evening. Suddenly I started to wonder. I stared right back at him, and hah! Two red patches appeared in his cheeks, obvious as hell, and started to spread. He didn't turn away, though. He just kept sitting there, looking at me. His face was still, and his eyes were focused right on me. Next thing I knew my own cheeks were heating up.

I still had it together enough to remember that that kind of eyeballing wasn't the smartest idea in the middle of a crowded bar. I turned quickly back to my drink, running a hand through my hair.

No one was paying us any attention, though. They were all watching two big, hulking hatchetmen squaring off against each other in the space between the tables.

A couple of punches got thrown and hey presto, five seconds later everyone was milling in. Our table was knocked flying, and then I got a chair-leg in the shoulder. I started looking round for the nearest exit. Out the back door and out of trouble, that was the best idea right now.

Fraser was standing blocking my way, cap in hands. He was twiddling it round and round, and looking weirdly like he was poised on the edge of doing something -- almost like he wanted to step in and break things up. What the fuck? I was pretty sure he wasn't standing there poised to join in, anyway.

"Come on," I said, swiping my hat up off the floor, grabbing his sleeve and dragging him out of there.

Two minutes later we were out in a dark, trashed-filled alley, freezing our balls off. The door clanged shut behind us and we were alone. Fraser was standing right up close to me. He'd put on his uniform cap, and now he straightened it. Looked like a nervous gesture. He didn't step away, though.

I bounced on the spot, rotating my shoulder and wincing when I felt the muscles scream at me. I was gonna have a nasty bruise there in the morning.

"Fucking freezing," I said.

Fraser nodded. His face was a pale blob in the murky gloom of the alley. I couldn't make out his expression. He was still standing pretty much on top of me. I could have reached out and thrown an arm around him.

"I got a hotel room in Detroit," I said suddenly.

That was followed by a moment of silence, where I thought I'd completely misread things. At least I'd be able to clear off back to Chicago and not see the guy again. 

Then he said, "I have an apartment ten minutes from here."

It was raining now, a heavy shower that was sending icy droplets sneaking down the back of my neck like they were making for my toes. By the time we got to Fraser's apartment we were soaked and frozen. He took my coat and hat and pushed me onto the sofa. Then he disappeared into a corner to do something with clothes-hangers.

I took the opportunity to give the place a quick once-over. One room, narrow bed, window papered over to keep the cold out. One of those Ancient Greek simple-living guys would have felt right at home. I wondered whether Canadian Customs Officers were really that badly paid, or whether the guy actually liked living this way. Something along the lines of the lemonade-drinking thing, maybe. 

Fraser reappeared at that point with a pile of blankets.

"I'm afraid I don't have any heating," he said. 

Next thing I knew I was tucked up under a mountain of blankets and Fraser was offering me bread and cheese.

So there we were, sitting curled up at opposite ends of the sofa, facing each other and chewing the cud. It wasn't exactly what I'd been imagining when I'd mentioned my hotel room, but it was kinda neat. I even had some kind of weird tea to go with my sandwich.

"I'm afraid I only have that or milk," he'd said apologetically. Being over the age of ten I'd gone for the tea.

Now he was telling me about the medicinal properties of whatever I was drinking. He was back to the guy who'd been dishing the dirt on Chicago accents in the bar, all fired up. I could feel my lips twitching in a smile. I couldn't help it.

He stopped, and gave me the I-beg-your-pardon look. I guess people don't usually grin at you when you're giving them an earful on the treatment of stomach aches and digestive discomfort.

"Nothing, nothing. I just hadn't got you down as such a talkative guy."

"Oh." To my amazement and secret delight, he went red.

"No, it's cool. Go on about the, uh, apple bark stuff."

It was surreal, sitting there with my hands wrapped around a mug of tea, listening to the guy talk about the best way to strip bark off a tree.

"Even if I could find an apple tree in Chicago," I said, "I don't think I'd wanna go drinking bits of it."

"I wouldn't advise it," he said seriously. "The soot content would be much too high."

"So this something you used to do as a kid, then? Go round gathering berries and tree-bark and stuff?"

"Oh no. I grew up above the tree-line."

It took me a minute just to process that. 

"What, like, in the Arctic?"

He nodded.

I made a 'huh' sort of face, and sat there for a minute, chewing over that. 

I was about to ask him how he'd ended up a Customs Officer in Windsor, Ontario, but I'd already figured out he was perfectly capable of asking me right back how I'd ended up a small-time hoodlum, and whether that's what I'd dreamed of when I was a kid.

I looked up, and found him watching me over the edge of his teacup.

"So you went around fishing in holes in the ice or something instead, then?"

"You may laugh, but you're quite correct."

So then I got to listen to a story about some old hunter guy who spent a month out on the ice, looking down holes for this mythic fish called a lumpsucker, if you can believe that. Fraser was full of weird stories that evening. Sometimes I paid attention and sometimes I just zoned out, and watched his lips moving. It was fast becoming my favorite past-time. Sometimes he shut up for a while, and let me throw in some stories of my own.

I hardly saw the time pass. My tea cup had been empty for a while before I even really noticed. I set it down, and Fraser dove in to pick it up.

"Can I offer you another cup of tea, Mr Komarek?"

"Ray."

"I beg your pardon?"

"It's Ray. Ray Komarek."

"Ah." He paused for second, like he was storing my name away in a filing cabinet or something. "And the tea?"

I shook my head. "I'm all right, thanks."

Fraser picked up my plate and his and went off somewhere out of sight. When he came back he didn't take his place on the sofa again. He stood there looking down at me.

"I've seen you watching me," he said, and boom, just like that, the mood in the room took a U-turn.

He was doing something funny with his tongue, sort of biting on it. I could see the tip poking out between his lips, and the heat in my gut shifted up a notch.

"Yeah," I said. "Yeah, you've made me."

He was still standing there, chewing at his tongue and looking at me. I had a feeling he was capable of keeping that up all night, so I lifted the corner of my blanket in invitation. For a minute there I wasn't sure what he'd do. Then he slid in beside me. 

He was pressed up against me now. I could feel his arm against mine, his thigh against mine, hidden under the blankets.

And what do you know, that's when I discovered I had no idea what to do next. Drunken fumblings and jerk-offs in the back of a car -- Kowalski's an expert in the field. Being under a mound of blankets with a guy who's been feeding you medicinal tea -- that's a whole 'nother ball game.

I turned my head, and found Fraser looking at me like he wasn't sure whether he was allowed to kiss me or not, or whether I was one of those shut-up-and-blow-me dickheads.

I put out a hand and ran a fingertip slowly across his lower lip.

He had nice lips. Hell, I'd been thinking that all evening. Bit chapped, that's all. Guess he spent half the day out in the wind and the cold down at the docks. Those lips were open now, and he was leaning towards me, and bam! We were off.

It was good, really good. Kinda slow and awkward at first, but that was good too. Fraser was taking the time to figure out what I wanted, and it was way too long of a time since anyone had done that. 

We ended up sprawled on the blankets, him on his back and me on top of him, and his hands all over me. They were strong hands, slightly callused, and they knew just how to touch me to break me apart, and leave me slumped on top of him feeling like my head exploded.

When I went down on him, he let his head fall back and moaned, very, very softly. It sounded like it came from somewhere deep inside, like it was a long time since he'd let a moan like that escape his lips. It made me feel all strange and tender inside. Then he was grabbing my hair and pulling me off him, making urgent noises. I slid back up his body to his head, and kissed his neck and held him while he shuddered beneath me.

When he finally stilled, I sat up. He was lying there on his back with his eyes closed and his mouth open, his chest still heaving. He shut his mouth and a goofy grin spread right across his face. Huh, didn't know it was possible to look so sweet and hot at the same time. I didn't say either of those words out loud, of course. I just grinned at him when he opened his eyes, and wiped the back of my hand across my mouth.

That made his eyelids flutter again, and one of his hands lifted up towards me like it was moving by itself.

"Ray," he said, and I'd spent too long going by the name Komarek, and then to have someone say my real name in a voice like that, deep and rough and gentle -- it did things to my insides. I didn't say anything, just leaned down and kissed him. 

It wasn't the most conventional kiss I'd ever had: he was running his tongue along my teeth like he was charting unknown territory or something, or counting my molars. But good. God it was good. 

It was only then that it occurred to me that this was the first person I'd kissed in years.

Finally we settled back into the blankets, tangled up together. This sleeping-with-a-guy-I-met-in-a-bar gig wasn't something I did very often, but I got the feeling it wasn't the done thing to overstay your welcome. Quick roll in the hay and then goodbye and nice to have met you, that had to be more like the order of the day. But Fraser was holding me close and rubbing circles on my back, and talking about some kind of migrating bird he'd spotted flying around down by the river this morning, and I was more than happy to lie there and soak up his words.

The blankets had slipped off us during the high-jinks, and now that my brain was up and running again, I could feel my arms coming up in goosebumps. I tried not to shiver, but the man had eyes like a hawk, or whatever bird of prey hangs out in the Arctic circle.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sure your hotel room would have been warmer."

"Yeah, and the hotel heaving with drunken hoods. I'd rather be here, believe me."

He pulled the blankets up around my shoulders, and it felt like -- I dunno what, really. I just liked him doing it. Felt sort of comfortable and intimate. I settled down beside him again, all warm and cozy now.

"What was that about Frank's gull?"

"Franklin's gull," said Fraser, and he was off again. Stuff about black tips on the wings, and this bird being remarkable because it flew south as late as December, and I didn't even know what time birds usually did it, but whatever. I liked listening to his voice.

I must have dozed off, because next thing I knew was, I was alone under the blankets, and Fraser was standing over me. He was clearing his throat, like he wasn't sure what to say to get my attention. I wanted to move, but I was too sleepy.

"Komarek," he said finally, putting his hand on my shoulder.

At least it wasn't Mr. Komarek this time.

"Ray," I mumbled.

"What?"

"It's Ray."

That got me a smile. "Ah, yes. So it is." 

Damn right it is, I thought, remembering him moaning my name a couple of hours earlier. Mmm, pity I was feeling so dog-tired.

Fraser was clearing his throat again. "Since it's late, and cold out, and you're on the wrong side of the border... well, in short, I thought perhaps -- " 

Through half-closed eyes, I could see him waving his hand over at something outside my field of vision. I turned my head, and what do you know, he had some sort of bed-roll and blankets type thing lying out on the floor. Pillows and everything. Wide enough for two people. Huh.

"I thought it might be expedient -- " he was saying, "though of course I understand if you, ah -- "

Okay. This was interesting, and kind of cool. 

"Expedient, expedient," I muttered, scrambling to my feet. "What the hell kind of word is that?"

Then I copped on to the way he was looking at me, all nervous and apologetic, and threw him a grin to show him it wasn't the bedroll I was objecting to.

"No, I didn't mean -- it's great. Lead on, Fra-- Benny. Benny? Benjamin?"

"Benton," he said.

Right... that was a new one on me.

"Benton," I repeated, clicking my tongue on the T. That raised a smile.

So there I was, tucked up in bed with Benton. He started out on the far side of the bedroll, but soon we both migrated towards the middle so that we were almost touching. After a minute I felt a hand reach out and close gently around my forearm.

It occurred to me that maybe he was lonely, and hell, I was lonely too. A year undercover, no-one there to watch my back -- it hadn't been fun.

That reminded me of what exactly I was supposed to be doing here in Windsor, and who exactly this guy was, and how stupid I was being to lie there feeling all mushy about him.

It was funny, and not funny haha. After this whole evening, it wasn't easy to reconcile the man now breathing softly on my shoulder with the corrupt Customs Officer who looked the other way while whiskey and gin flooded across the border. He just didn't seem the type. I guess no one is the 'type' though. Everyone's human, and everyone could do with a little more money, for one reason or another.

My last thought before I fell asleep was that Benton Fraser was going to end up in jail because of me, sometime soon.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, many thanks to ride_4ever for very kindly beta-reading this.

.. .. ..

2\. Ice

I moved quietly around the apartment, going through my morning routine while making as little noise as possible. My gaze was drawn time and again to the man still curled up asleep on my bedroll. 

Ray Komarek lay on his side with his legs tucked up at the knees, one arm under his head and his face buried in the crook of his elbow. His other hand rested on the blanket in front of him, where it had fallen when I slipped out of bed. I could still remember waking up and finding his hand resting on my arm -- and the pleasure I had taken in that simple contact.

I opened the curtains, and pulled down the slab of plywood and sheets of newspaper I used as insulation, letting in a blast of cold winter light. It was very early in the morning, and the street below my window was deserted. Beyond that I had a view of the river, frozen solid now. On the far side the Detroit skyline rose up across the icy grey sky.

I closed my eyes and stood there for a moment. Cold air was coming in through the cracks around the window frame and for a moment I could pretend it was the icy wind from the Arctic Ocean blowing across Shingle Point. Then the milkman's cart rumbled past under the window and brought me back to reality.

I turned away from the window, opening my eyes again. Komarek had shifted when the light fell on his face, but he was still asleep.

 _Ray,_ I thought, looking down at him. In my head I could still hear his voice moaning my name.

Now the contented glow of the previous evening was mixed with bitterness in my heart.

I washed and began to dress. My thoughts were tripping over one another inside my head in their rush to remind me of my foolishness.

It had been a terrible idea, of course, bringing Ray here. Entirely incompatible with my mission. Not that I had been given explicit orders against intimate relations with the men I was supposed to be spying on. Heaven forbid that any officer of the RCMP should harbour such tendencies in the first place. But I knew myself that while one night was a foolishness I could probably permit myself, anything more than that would be a dereliction of duty. I began to prepare my shaving kit, thinking of my conversation with Ray the previous night. Everything had seemed so easy, so _right_ , as though something had clicked perfectly into place straight away. It was typical of my luck, I thought, that the sole relief to my lonely vigil in Windsor should come from one of the men whose downfall I was here to ensure.

I went on sharpening my shaving knife with swift, hard strokes, telling myself I would never see him again anyway. He was certainly expecting me to forget him as quickly as he would forget me. He didn't know, of course, that he was the first visitor to cross the threshold of my apartment in the six months I'd lived there. Six months in that Customs Office down by the river, masquerading as an employee of the Department of National Revenue. Six months taking bribes, and sucking up to small-time gangsters. Six months stamping clearance documents for shipments of alcohol, and pretending I found it even remotely plausible that they really were actually being sent all the way to Venezuela or Peru. Worst of all, six months without Diefenbaker, who had been judged too "conspicuous" by the men who decided my fate.

It felt a great deal like a punishment thinly disguised as an assignment. In fact, most of the time, I was quite sure that was precisely what it was. I had tracked down the killers of my father, and been sent to rot in Windsor, Ontario as my reward.

When Ray stirred, I was immediately drawn to the movement, hyper-aware of his presence as I was. I watched him tense at first, as he took in his unfamiliar surroundings. In one smooth motion he sat up, looking around with blurry eyes, while his hand went to the pillow under which I'd seen him tuck his gun the previous night. When he saw me he relaxed, and something inside me liked that very much.

"Hey," he said.

"Good morning."

I was about to offer him breakfast. Then I paused. I must already have seemed lonely and pathetic last night, trying to get him to stay just a little while longer. But he had seemed to like it. And it would be terribly rude and inhospitable of me to throw him out of the apartment without so much as a cup of tea. I stood there, hesitating.

He was getting to his feet, rubbing at his eyes. He pulled on his vest and jacket, then picked up the gun and stuck it in his waistband.

All of a sudden he wasn't Ray anymore, but a foreign criminal carrying a firearm without a license. I forced myself to ignore this. Even had I been in a position to arrest him, it wasn't as though a thousand other such men didn't pass through Windsor every day.

He was looking at me now, standing quite still, head cocked to one side and eyes watchful, like an Arctic hare wary of the slightest sound.

I didn't say anything, until the silence became unbearable. Then I cleared my throat, and looked down at my feet.

He seemed to take that as a sign. All of a sudden he was in motion, running a hand through his hair, tugging his clothes straight, looking around for his hat and coat.

"Guess I better get moving then. I gotta blow, gotta get back across the river." He'd found his belongings and was shrugging into the coat. "Supposed to be driving back this morning."

I finished the sentence in my head: _To Chicago with a truckload of Canadian whiskey_. It was an unpleasant thought.

Ray was standing by the door now, his hand on the handle.

"Hey, listen, I -- "

I didn't know what to say, so I just waited for him to go on. But he didn't. Instead, he said, "Well, thanks for, you know -- Thanks." He gave me the briefest of smiles. "Guess I better say goodbye, then."

"Goodbye, Ray," I said.

A few seconds later he was gone, and I was alone.

.. .. ..

3\. Clouds

The next few weeks, I just couldn't get the guy out of my head. I'd be standing in a warehouse in Chicago, keeping a count as barrels of Canadian hooch got hauled off the back of a truck, and I'd catch a glimpse of someone in a navy blue suit, or a guy would take off his hat and run a hand over smooth dark hair, and boom! It was like I was back in Fraser's apartment.

Words, too. Fraser liked words -- I'd noticed that even back when he was just a guy I saw in a bar from time to time -- and he used words other people usually didn't. I'd hear some guy on the radio say 'putative' or 'impunity' or some other goddamned word where I only half knew what it meant, and just like that, I'd have Fraser in my head.

I couldn't get him out, but I wasn't too sure I wanted to either. Okay, when you came down to it, it was just a couple of quickies, a pretty good hand-job and a blow-job, but jeez... Fraser seemed so much more.

Next time I got sent back to Detroit was about three weeks later. Drive over, make some noise, show a little muscle, protect Mr. Capone's interests -- I'd already done it a dozen times before. And yep, you heard right: in my head he was 'Mr. Capone' now, and not 'that scumbag Capone', and that really got me down sometimes. Over a year on this gig now, and I was starting to feel I was long past drowning -- like I'd already drowned months ago. Not that I ever saw Capone myself, of course, except when he was in the newspaper, side by side with the Mayor and the Chief Commissioner at the races.

This time it was only me and Pietrucci who drove over to Detroit. Pietrucci had plenty of friends and enemies in the city, and plenty of business of his own to attend to. It was easy to give him the slip. I hitched a lift from a goon I knew who was taking a load of counterfeit bonds into Windsor, and got down to the docks over there in the early evening.

The Customs guys had a couple of warehouses, and a drafty little cabin for an office. I ducked around the back to look through the window of the cabin. Fraser was behind his desk, stamping and signing a huge stack of papers. There was no one else in the room.

That was when I copped on to the fact that I'd been kind of hoping there would be other officers in there with him. That way I wouldn't have to make any sort of decision. I wouldn't be able to talk to him anyway. I'd have to take off, and wouldn't get a chance to do what I had in mind -- and what I had in mind was a pretty foolish thing. But he was alone. Guess he was the only one on evening shift.

I rapped on the window.

Jeez, Fraser's expression when he looked up and saw me -- it was like someone had handed him an unexpected present. Then the light vanished from his face as if it had never been there. He stood and came to let me in the door, face set in a plaster-cast expression of civility. There was a little bit of wariness hidden in there too, I think.

"Ray," he said instead of 'Mr. Komarek', and I took that as a sign of encouragement.

I still didn't really know what the hell I was doing here. I knew it was a bad idea, but all I wanted was to talk to someone decent for a change. Was that so much to ask?

"Hey," I said, rubbing the back of my neck.

"Can I help you?" he asked, and I realized he thought I was there to get something stamped. That took the wind right out of my sails. But I pushed on.

"Just thought you might like to go for a -- a glass of milk or something."

The corner of Fraser's lips twitched. But the rest of his face was still wary.

"Or, you know, whatever else you want to drink."

"I see," he said.

He wasn't giving anything away. But I hadn't forgotten his face when he first saw me.

"Just a drink," I said. "I mean, I thought it might be, uh, nice to, you know, talk."

Finally, he gave this little nod. 

"I'd like that very much."

I relaxed, feeling my mouth spread into a grin.

"Great."

So there we were, not knowing what to do next, how to get this show on the road. Him standing there all stiff, and me jiggling up and down on my feet, still feeling uncomfortable.

Finally he cleared his throat and looked at his watch. 

"I was going to start my evening break in five minutes, as a matter of fact."

So we ended up in a little diner Fraser knew. It was in a quiet street, not far from the docks but full of people from another world: clerks and copyists and factory girls. Instinctively we both wanted to keep out of the clip joints where the bootleggers hung out. I got the impression Fraser hadn't come here very often before, if ever. He didn't greet the waitress by name or inquire after the bartender's wife and children, as I'd seen him do in even the sleaziest dives.

Fraser had a glass of orange juice, and I had a beer. I'd hesitated before ordering but hey, I was in Canada, right? It wasn't even illegal.

Fraser had been pretty quiet, and pretty stiff, since we'd left his office. As if he wasn't sure if he wanted to come after all. Then once we were sitting down facing, it was like he made a conscious effort to relax.

"Thought you might have forgotten me," I said, only half joking.

"Oh no." His eyes had gone wide and surprised.

"Huh. Great."

"On the contrary," he added.

That made me grin. I still didn't know what to say next, though, so I looked back down into my beer.

"So, uh, you see any interesting wildlife recently?"

For a second he just stared, like he was wondering whether there was some sort of double meaning in the question. Then he smiled, his first genuine smile since he'd seen me through the window, and bam, the starting pistol fired and he was off. Something about a beaver lodge he'd been observing since last summer, near one of the bootleggers' favorite crossings on the frozen river. If you'd asked me I would have said beavers hibernate in winter. Shows how much I know. Fraser didn't laugh at me when I said that, though, just started explaining about the twigs and stuff the little critters stocked up underwater for the winter months.

When he first started talking he'd hardly been making any sense at all. He'd been looking pretty much as awkward as I felt. Soon he'd settled down, though, and turned back into the guy I'd been thinking about all month.

"It's a shame you weren't here last week," he said. "I found a porcupine living in a packing crate in General Electric's warehouse."

For a minute, I didn't get it. Why the hell would he think I'd be interested in seeing a porcupine? I mean yeah, I was, actually, if only because Fraser made the whole thing sound so exciting just by the way he talked about it. But why would he particularly want to spill the beans to me about it? 

Then it clicked. I was a guy who listened. Probably the only guy who did in all his entourage. I was a guy who thought he was _worth_ listening too. He hardly knew me, and yet he'd thought of me when he saw the porcupine.

I was sitting there feeling all warm and fuzzy inside, when I suddenly realized I'd stopped listening. Way to go, Kowalski. Just when I'd been congratulating myself on being the only one who _did_ listen. And Fraser was looking at me, like he was expecting me to say something.

"Sorry, Benton, guess I sort of zoned out there for a minute."

It wasn't the brush off, and he didn't look hurt, thank God. He just smiled.

"Never mind. I was telling you rather more than you probably want to know about the flora of the Northwest Territories. I'm afraid I... well, when I was younger I lived in a fairly rural environment. It's what I know best."

"Guess you don't like living in the city too much, huh?"

"It's not the city, so much as -- "

He stopped short.

I let him have a couple of encouraging noises.

When he started up again, he was speaking much more slowly. "I was going to say, it's not the city environment I dislike so much as how easy it is to -- to lose oneself, in a manner of speaking. Which makes little sense, given how many different people I come into contact with every day."

He shut up then, like he'd already said too much. I knew exactly what he meant, though. I knew what it was to feel alone just because, no matter how many people you saw all day. Didn't know how to say it, though, so I just nodded at him.

Like he was still feeling he'd gone too far, he suddenly added,

"Of course, the urban environment has its advantages as well as its drawbacks. The opportunities for positive social interaction are endless. I've met many interesting people just in my own apartment block, for instance."

"You a member of neighborhood watch?" I asked, only half joking.

"Of course," he said, and what do you know, I wasn't too surprised.

The conversation fell into a kind of lull then. Fraser took a drink from the glass that had been neglected while he talked. I watched him lick his lips, and remembered kissing them. I wished we were curled up together on his shabby old sofa, instead of sitting here, miles apart.

"Look, I'm gonna have something to eat," I said suddenly. "I'm starving. Maybe, uh, you should grab a bite too if you want."

Fraser looked at me with this serious expression on his face. He nodded.

I knew damn well that such a simple thing wasn't simple at all, in the particular circumstances we had here. That it took us from 'quick drink before we each go our separate ways this evening' to actually, deliberately spending time together.

I didn't know exactly what I was doing tonight. I was just going with the flow, not stopping to think because if I did, I knew I was going to remember that this wasn't one of my better ideas. I just knew that if I found a porcupine in the basement of my boarding house back in Chicago, I'd want to tell Fraser about it.

Fraser asked for the soup of the day, and I had a Welsh rarebit. We both sat there with our mouths shut while we waited for the food. I played with the condiment pots on the table, lining them up and them breaking them apart again. Fraser was sitting still, and I could tell he was watching me.

After a bit, as though he'd come to some sort of decision in his head, he said suddenly, "It's good to see you again, Ray."

"Yeah? Uh, I mean, great."

He gave me this smile, like he really was delighted to be here.

I wanted to add, "Good to see you too," or "Take me home," or "Sorry, this is a really crappy idea, I should go." Our food came just then, and so I didn't have to say anything else at all.

We ate slowly, and as soon as we got into the swing of talking, we didn't shut up. We talked about absolutely everything except It. We didn't talk about that night weeks before. We didn't talk about tonight. I didn't say that I'd come to Windsor pretty much just to see him, and I hadn't made any other plans for the evening either. Fraser didn't say he had a big old empty apartment waiting for him that night, and no one in it. 

Instead, we talked about the Stanley Cup finals, about the World Series and Babe Ruth's latest record, about Amy Johnson's flight and Hoover's new bill. I discovered that Fraser knew almost nothing about cars, and had seen one for the first time when he came to Windsor. That sent me off on a ramble to match his longest.

I had a car, before: a 1926 Chrysler Imperial. Had to get rid of it when I went undercover, though. That drove me crazy. I mean, if a cop can scrape together enough money for a beauty like that, I don't see why it's not even more likely a mobster could. But the Feds nay-sayed it.

Fraser had driven a little bit from time to time, as part of his Customs Office gig. He only referred to his work in the most oblique fashion, but it was obvious that he hated it. I would have liked to ask him why, exactly. Yeah, so paperwork all day is no fun, even if you liven it up with a few trips out on the river for random cargo searches. It was probably pretty much like when I was in the Traffic division in Chicago, back when I was a rookie. But I got the feeling there was more to it than that, for Fraser. Maybe it was the fact that, as everyone everywhere knew, his job wasn't worth a dime. As if everyone in the world didn't know the Windsor-Detroit crossing is more or less a high-debit pipeline of booze flowing into the States.

Whatever it was, he obviously didn't want to talk about work, and that was fine by me. It wasn't like the conversation wasn't going nineteen to the dozen already.

It was great, and it was weird. Even without the whole me being a cop thing, I didn't really know how this should go. This wasn't the sort of thing people did, the sort of thing men did, talk over dinner and go home and fall into bed. But I wanted to. I thought Fraser did too. He had his doubts on his side too, that was obvious. But I knew what he was thinking when I looked up at him, licking my lips after eating, and found him mimicking me.

We finished up our food, and Fraser looked at his watch. 

"I'm afraid I really must return to work," he said, and he genuinely sounded reluctant.

So we paid up, and stepped out onto the sidewalk. Fraser looked at me, and I said I was going his way, and Fraser didn't say anything.

We were a couple of blocks from the riverfront when he stopped short and turned to face me.

"I generally get home around midnight," he said in a rush. "If I'm working the late shift, I mean."

"What's that?" I said. "I mean, yeah? I mean, yeah, okay."

He was looking as flustered as I felt.

"Of course I realise that -- I mean, in the past I have never -- " He tugged at his collar like it was too tight for him, even though it wasn't actually that tight at all.

"Me neither," I said quickly.

We stood there on the street corner, a respectable two feet or so apart. We were just outside the circle of light cast by an electric streetlamp, and I couldn't quite make out the expression on his face.

"I really shouldn't delay any longer," he said in this strangled-sounding voice, and took off at high speed towards the riverfront.

I spent the next couple of hours walking around blindly. I sat in another bar for a while and stared into space. Not thinking, just letting my mind go blank, concentrating on my drink, not letting myself talk myself out of my decision.

Finally, I looked at my watch, and it was almost midnight. I began to walk slowly towards Fraser's place, still not thinking about what I was doing.

The door to his building was off the latch, and I pushed it open, climbed the stairs, and knocked at his door. Fraser let me in without a word.

.. .. ..

4\. Evenings

It got so every time I was in Detroit -- so, every couple of weeks -- I'd go over the river and call on Fraser, spend the evening and the night.

I started to miss him when I was back in Chicago. Sometimes I thought about trying to telephone him; they had a telephone in the Customs office. Never actually did it, though.

I knew -- God, of course I knew damn well how things were going to end, and they weren't going to end well. But it got so he was the only thing that was keeping me sane.

When I knocked on his door each evening, it was like he'd been waiting for me. He'd let me in, and kiss me on the lips in the most matter-of-fact way possible. I always got a kick out of that. It was like _hey, it's Ray. What could be more natural than to plant one on him?_ And Fraser was big on natural, of course.

Then he'd crank up the gas-fired radiator that had appeared the fourth night I stayed over. Apparently he'd just happened to see it in a secondhand dealer's one day, and what with the extra-cold winter this year... Whatever. I knew it was just for me. And I got a kick out of that too.

We'd eat together, often stuff I brought, because Fraser wasn't great about varying his diet. Once he said something about growing up on fresh meat and dried everything else, and it showed. Me, I like to try new stuff. I'll eat anything once -- do anything once, in fact.

With Fraser, I got to try a lot of new stuff. Long hours spent lying on his bedroll, wrapped up in blankets and tangled together, stroking and kissing. Quick, desperate fucks when we hadn't seen each other for more than a month, and every day had dragged by. Slow, aching teasing, when we'd each try to hold out as long as possible, longer than the other guy, spurred on by a competitive streak that he had just as much as me. I didn't get the impression Fraser had a huge amount of experience with men -- less even than me. He was creative, though, and that tongue of his knew just how to drive me crazy.

I learned other new stuff too. Random facts about the world, the North, the place he came from. The average daily temperature in January in the Yukon, and what was in King Tut's tomb, and whatever other crazy thing happened to be rattling around in his head.

I even started drinking milk. There wasn't a drop of the hard stuff in his place, even though it would have been all legal and above board, and I never brought any. And Fraser started buying coffee. One morning he just stuck a cup under my nose, without saying anything, and I got this stupid warm, happy feeling inside.

I treasured some of the mornings as much as the evenings. Those were the mornings we spent lying in bed, wrapped around each other, feeling warm and lazy and half-asleep. Most of the time, though, Fraser had to get up and go to work, or I had to drive back to Chicago early with a cargo of whiskey or rum.

Wojek and other guys had been sniffing around me recently, but not too closely. They'd noticed me slipping away from them, noticed me volunteering to drive to Detroit any chance I got. They'd come to the conclusion that I had a girl in Windsor, and that was fine by me.

Other than that I kept my head down, and got on with the job. I'd been undercover for over a year by that stage, which was more than enough time to rise up through the ranks of the mob -- if that was what your heart was set on and if that heart was made of ice. Those weren't my orders, though. And I'm not ashamed to say I was pretty damn grateful for that. My orders were to keep my head down, play the grunt man and keep my eyes and ears open for anything that might be useful to the Feds.

I don't really know why I even took the job. I mean, it wasn't like I thought I was actually gonna clean up the mob. Hell, when I was a cop on the beat, in Chicago, we used to drive around the speakeasies on a Saturday evening, and people would just come out and throw money through the open window of the car. Everyone was doing it. You couldn't not do it. That's how the world worked.

I guess mostly I took the job because of Stella.

Me and Fraser, of course, never talked about work, neither his nor mine. It was like Fraser's apartment was a no-go zone for any talk about rum-running, bribes or any of that stuff. Which was just damn fine by me. Even if I did feel like we'd built ourselves a little house of dreams, that wasn't going to survive the next big storm.

And sometimes reality pushed its way in the door despite our efforts, and Fraser would get all still and shadowy-eyed, and not say anything. Those were the nights I turned up at his place with powder burns and blowback on my hands. It wasn't something I really associated with the mob, actually, because it wasn't like I hadn't got shot at and done my share of shooting even back when I was a regular cop, too. Though never at anyone. Not until they sent me under. Fraser didn't like it, though. He was quieter all evening, those evenings.

One time, I turned up with a bandage round my shoulder, where I'd been winged earlier that day when Babyface Benedetti took offense at Pugs Lombardi's tone of voice over a game of pool. Fraser took one look at it, and sat me down on the sofa. He came back a minute later with hot water, cloths and fresh bandages, and started redoing the work one of Capone's house doctors had done. He knew what he was doing, I could tell. It would have almost been nice, sitting there in capable hands, if the damn graze didn't sting like hell. And if Fraser didn't look so damn miserable.

When he was done, he kissed my shoulder and then let me go. Still without having said a word. I curled up on the sofa and pulled him down with me, and we just lay there. I had one hand in his hair and the other in his hand, and I was running my fingers over his palm, gently as I could. Finally he relaxed against me, and we fell asleep.

..

After a few months spring came, and we could spend the evenings lying on top of Fraser's blankets instead of under them. The Detroit river melted, and threw a spanner in the rum-running machine. For a couple of weeks we couldn't drive across on the ice or cross the river by boat either. One evening, Fraser told me about the ice roads that lead to the hamlets he'd grown up in, Aklavik and Tuktuk-wherever and I don't know where else. He seemed to have moved around a lot and I could never keep track. Anyway, these places, they were so far north they were practically _in_ the Arctic Ocean. In winter you could sled there across the ice, but when the ice melted they were cut off, and you could only get there by boat. I couldn't even imagine what it must be like, living like that.

I lay there, my hand in his and his other arm flung across my shoulders, listening to him talking about icefields and a place where you couldn't tell where the land ended and the sea began, in summer or in winter. Where the land was huge and flat and the earth and the sea ran together. After a long time his voice died away, but I knew he was still thinking of home.

I gave his hand a squeeze.

"Long way away?"

"Eight days away," he said.

I began stroking his hands, running my fingers along the rough skin of his palm. He had a splinter from some packing case at work, and I lifted his hand to my mouth and sucked it out.

Fraser gave a little sigh, and shifted closer to me.

"I must admit, there are some advantages to being here in the south, though."

"Yeah?" I said, giving him a sideways grin. "Like what?" I can fish for compliments with the best of them.

In answer he dropped a kiss on the side of my head, ruffling my hair.

I was still playing with his hands, running my fingers across his skin.

"You used to ride horses a lot?" I asked, wondering about the callouses across the inside of his fingers. 

He suddenly went completely stiff.

"Yes," he said, and nothing else. And what the hell? Because first, it wasn't like it was a crime to go horse-riding or anything, but he was acting as if it was. And anyway, Customs Officers didn't ride horses, and I couldn't exactly see people galloping around on horseback on those ice roads.

After a bit Fraser pulled away from me and climbed to his feet, going to make some totally unnecessary adjustment to the radiator. I lay there wondering where else he'd lived besides the North and Windsor.

..

It was around that time that Babyface Benedetti and his two brothers got whacked by persons unknown, and Detroit went crazy. Babyface was pretty much Capone's main man in Detroit at the time, and there'd always been a problem between Capone's set-up and Detroit's homegrown mobsters. Which I knew all about, seeing as how they were always sending me over from Chicago to throw shapes in Detroit. After Babyface got taken down, I spent three days and nights lying on a mattress with a machine gun in my arms, in the front upper room of a riverfront house in Detroit. The city's homegrown hoods kept driving by outside in cars bristling with weapons, and Capone's remaining kingpins talked and argued in the back room.

I had Wojek on one side of me and a guy called Malone on the other. After just one night, Malone took offense because he decided that since he couldn't understand me and Wojek, it meant we were talking about him behind his back, and Wojek took offense because apparently it was Malone's own fault he wasn't Polish. I closed my eyes and put my head down on my mattress and thought about icefields and polar bears.

On the second night Wojek and Malone made it up again, and decided to pass the time figuring out who'd got laid the most recently.

I pretended to be asleep.

Malone thumped the edge of my mattress with the butt of his gun. 

"He's no fun."

"He's married," said Wojek. 

"When's that ever stop a man having fun?"

In my head I could see Wojek's shrug.

"Though I don't think he's married any more," he added. He lowered his voice, but not nearly enough. "Word is she gave him the high hat and split with another bloke."

A year ago I would have punched his face in for that. Now, I just wanted to get through the next few days alive.

Malone laughed. "Maybe she wasn't worth keeping. Not like Mancini's new dame. You seen her?" I felt the mattress next to me shift. He must have been making some kind of funny-guy gesture.

Sonny Mancini was one of the guys in the back room, angling to take over from Babyface Benedetti. If I'd been Malone, I'da kept my voice down a bit more.

Wojek seem to be thinking along the same lines, because he changed the subject all of a sudden, and started talking about some non-starter or other he'd backed in yesterday's races.

On the third night, Wojek lost an arm to a hail of bullets and Malone got one in the stomach. A load more of Capone's triggermen had arrived from Chicago by then though, and we had more bullets than the other guys. Another hour, and it was all over bar the newspaper headlines.

And I was still in one piece.

When I got out of there I didn't even think of driving back to Chicago. I slipped straight across the border and went to knock on Fraser's door.

He took one look at me and went white as the snowfields that had got me through the last few days just thinking about them. 

"Not my blood," I said quickly.

Next thing I knew he was ripping my clothes off, though not in quite the way I would have liked. Unsurprisingly, he turned out to be an expert at getting bloodstains out.

That night we didn't get it on at all. Fraser just took me into bed and wrapped his arms around me, and we lay there with his mouth pressed against the crook of my shoulder. He was close and warm, but it felt like in his head he was a thousand miles away.

..

In May Fraser announced that it was spring festival time, and when I protested that it was practically summer down here, I just got a pissy look for my trouble. So we had our own private little spring festival. Unluckily -- or, you know, luckily -- we couldn't have any log-sawing contests or muskrat-skinning demonstrations, but we did make maple toffee, and duck for trout in a basin of water. Then I decided it was about time I showed the Northwest Territories didn't have a monopoly on cool and interesting stuff to eat, and got Fraser helping me make nalesniki, just like back when I was a little kid and we'd just come over from Poland.

Fraser ate a lot of them. And I mean a lot.

Then he started getting impatient, and licking the spoon while I was holding it, and then licking my fingers, and then moving in on my mouth. Next thing I knew, I was fumbling to turn off the gas, and Fraser was dragging me away from the stove. Then I forgot all about everything except getting my hands in Fraser's pants and his in mine.

Ten minutes later, I had a happy Fraser sprawled on the bedroll beside me, and Christ, he looked like he'd had his fill in every sense of the word.

"You are a wonderful cook, Ray," he said, reaching out to tug me close. "You may be one of the best cooks I have ever had the pleasure to encounter. In fact, you know what, cookery is only one of your many, many talents." 

That made me snort out a laugh. "Hah, wish you would tell Stella that."

His eyes went round and questioning, and I realized what I'd said. I guess she'd been on my mind because of Malone. Well, there was no avoiding the conversation now.

"Stella, she's my wife," I said.

His whole body practically seized up at that, and he was peeling himself off me like he'd suddenly noticed I was covered in some kind of rash. It occurred to me that this was a guy who'd managed to get all nice and comfortable with the idea of getting it on with another man, no problem. Getting it on with a married man, though -- no way, José.

"I mean, she was my wife," I said quickly. "She's got another guy, now."

My voice sounded all stupid and whiny in my ears. But he was already relaxing back against me, thank God.

He still had a funny look on his face, though. 

"I see," he said in a small voice.

I stared up at the ceiling, following the cracks that radiated out from the light fitting, and wondering why the hell I had such a tight, guilty feeling in the middle of my chest. Because, yeah, I hadn't even so much as mentioned Stella, till now. But hey, was that really my fault? What could I have said, anyway? I couldn't say she was amazing, beautiful, clever, the only female lawyer in the state of Illinois. Someone like that could never have married a bootlegger. Kind of hard to believe a flatfoot could have been married to her either, come to think of it. I was though. It even worked, for a while.

I turned my head to look at Fraser. Was this the kind of thing where we told each other that kind of stuff? What kind of thing did we even have here? Were we just two guys who fucked twice a month? I didn't know. Didn't know what Fraser wanted, didn't know what this was supposed to be -- what this was allowed to be.

And that was without even taking into account the whole me being a cop thing.

"I'm sorry, Benton," I said. "I've, I dunno -- I've never done this kind of thing before. I dunno what, you know, how this works, this kind of thing."

"This kind of thing?" he said. It occurred to me that maybe he didn't even know or care how this was supposed to be, what two guys who fucked were supposed or allowed to do.

"Frase -- " I started, but he cut me off before I could get any further.

"It's all right, Ray. After all, I shouldn't expect confidences when I don't give them myself."

I propped myself up on one elbow to look at him. He was the one staring up at the ceiling now. 

"What, you're married too?"

"No, I didn't mean that."

He didn't say what he did mean, and I didn't ask him. I just reached out to touch his cheek. He put up a hand to cover mine, and then pulled me back down to curl up beside him.

It was true that Fraser didn't talk a huge amount about himself either. He talked a lot about his home, Aklavik and Tucktuck-whereeverthefuck and all those places. Not about himself though. I had figured out that his father was dead, and that Fraser had come south just after that, or even because of it. He never mentioned his mother. I knew he'd had a wolf called Diefenbaker. I knew he'd read a lot of books as a child, and I knew far more than I had ever expected to about what it was like to live in the frozen north.

Driving back to Chicago the next morning, I spent most of the journey deep in thought.

I had been _that_ close to telling him everything. Something held me back, and it sure as hell wasn't because I was thinking of my responsibilities to the Feds. I didn't give a fuck about the Feds, when you came right down to it. It wasn't like the mayor and the chief commissioner of Chicago _and_ Detroit weren't far cozier with the mob themselves than Fraser ever would be. 

No, it wasn't that. It was more the fact that I'd have to admit I'd been lying up to now. And somehow we'd slid past the point of him being a stranger I didn't know I could trust, to him being someone close enough to me to deserve the truth -- and I'd missed that point, that window of opportunity to tell the truth. It had just slid straight by one evening and I hadn't even noticed.

It was breaking me apart inside. Most of the time I just didn't think about it, though. Planning for the future the whole time hadn't exactly worked out well with Stella. Since then I'd decided I was gonna live in the present -- or anyway, I was _trying_ to just live in the present.

Sometimes I had conversations with Fraser in my head, where I just casually mentioned this little professional arrangement I had going with the Chicago PD, where they paid me money and I did whatever they told me -- including letting myself be loaned out to the Feds. Sometimes it went fine, and Fraser said, of course, Ray, he'd already guessed that anyway, what with him being a genius and everything, and all his brainpower being wasted at the Customs Office. More often, the Fraser in my head just stood there, looking horribly disappointed in me, and confused too, because he expected everyone to be as honest as he was. And sometimes -- those were the worst times -- he didn't really react at all. He didn't care, because after all, I was just someone to fuck and kid around with, right?

.. .. ..

5\. Sun

I had let Ray into my heart, though I knew all along just how foolish an idea that was -- and how foolish that sounds, phrased like that. But I was lonely, and Ray was -- Ray was the kind of man I would find once in a lifetime. 

The rational part of me knew that I was only asking for trouble. Ray was a mobster, for all that he seemed to be fairly low down in the ranks. Sometimes I wondered what had led him to such a life. Where in his life had he turned aside from the path trod by the honest citizen? Not that anyone is honest in a world where the premier of Ontario goes to Blaise Diesbourg's dinner parties, and every second person in Detroit still drinks. In Windsor I came into contact with more than my fair share of bootleggers, and if Ray seemed somehow to be different -- well, that was just my partiality talking.

And how I was partial! Ray was... how to put it? Ray was someone who actually looked at me: the first person in six months undercover who hadn't seen me as just a machine on the end of a rubber stamp. He listened to me; he was interested. Sometimes I saw his eyes glaze over while I was talking, and he'd sit there, watching me like I was the most interesting thing in the universe, even if my words weren't. Then he'd blink and grin at me, and instead of pretending he'd been listening, he'd just give his most self-deprecating grin, and say, "Come again, Frase?"

Sometimes I had dreams where we were in Aklavik together, sitting in my grandparents' cabin or trekking across the frozen Mackenzie Delta. Ray was always smiling in these dreams, always enthusiastic, even when his eyelashes were frozen and his cheeks were red from windburn. Everything was perfect in those dreams, because everything was simple.

Outside my dreams, nothing was simple, though Ray and I never talked about my work or his. I often got the impression that Ray wanted to ignore the outside world just as much as I did.

I never told him a direct lie, but in my heart I knew that was just a technicality: something to make me feel better. I had been lying by omission to him since we met.

I told myself there was no point in spoiling these days we had. Eventually this assignment would end, I would be sent to another posting, further from the United States, and that would be the end of that. What would a Chicago mobster do in Norman Wells or Tuktoyaktuk?

Maybe I could be happy for a while, for the first time in a very long time indeed. A little happiness, surely that wasn't so much to ask for, however temporary I might know it to be?

And if sometimes the memory of Victoria surfaced, and a little voice told me that I had learned nothing at all from experience... well, it was easily silenced.

I managed to keep this up for a surprisingly long time -- many months, in fact. It was early July by the time something happened to force my head out of the sand. 

I was on patrol that day, along a stretch of the river between the Ambassador Bridge and Fighting Island, accompanied by Officers Bowell and Tupper.

Officer Bowell was steering the motorlaunch, I was surveying the riverbank through binoculars, and Officer Tupper was alternately looking at his watch and the bag that contained our luncheon.

It was a glorious summer morning, and the sun was already high in the sky. The sounds of the city were muted across the water, and a breeze of fresh, clean air blew across my face. If I closed my eyes, I could almost pretend I was on the Mackenzie River.

As we neared Fighting Island, I caught sight of something odd through the binoculars, and signaled to Bowell to slow down. It was a ten-foot outboard craft with a small cabin, moored in a shallow inlet on the Canadian side of the island. The desk was piled high with crates hidden under tarpaulin. I signaled to Bowell again, and he turned the launch towards the island shore.

The two men sitting smoking on the deck made no effort to hide as we approached. They sat there, their eyes in shadow under the brims of their homburgs, and watched with hostility as Tupper and I climbed aboard.

"Morning, gents," said Tupper. "Department of National Revenue inspection."

One of the men sighed, stabbed out his cigarette and climbed to his feet as slowly as possible, letting his jacket swing open so that we could see the .38 Special he had tucked into his waistband.

"Shipping manifest, please," said Tupper, holding out his hand.

I had already been through this scenario a thousand times on a thousand small water-going craft. Usually they had export papers for a cargo of liquor bound for Cuba or Venezuela. Often, though, they were transporting even more than they had papers for. That was the cue for us to be paid off even more than we already had been. I hated this part more than almost anything else about my job. Sometimes it felt like our principal occupation was making sure we Customs Officers had received our share of the illicit profits, rather than making sure the law was not being broken. 

Tupper was making a big business of checking exactly how many bottles of whiskey each crate contained. I stood stiffly to one side, staring out across the water. A noise behind me made me turn, just in time to see a third man emerge from the cabin.

It was Ray.

He gave a start when he saw me, but an almost imperceptible one. I was sure I was the only person who noticed. Then he was moving forward again, slouching over to stand by his partners.

"Morning," he said, leaning forward to pull a cigarette from the packet lying on a nearby crate. "Officer Tupper, right? And Officer Fraser."

I nodded stiffly. Tupper grunted without looking up from the crates he was levering open.

"What have we here, eight, nine... ten bottles. That's not what's written on the export permit, now, is it?"

The man with the papers scowled, and drifted over to join Tupper. That left Ray and me, and the third man, who was still sprawled out on the deck, blowing smoke up into the sky.

It was the first time I had seen Ray out of doors, since that evening back in December when he came to see me at work. The first time I had ever seen him in broad daylight. Our eyes met, just for a moment, and suddenly it hit me. What I was doing. Sleeping with a bootlegger.

I turned away, clasping my hands together behind my back lest they betray me. A small gaggle of white-fronted geese had just come ashore on the island, and I watched their progress as they shook out their feathers and began to waddle up the stoney beach. I let the very slowest of the geese reach the edge of the trees before I turned back to face Ray.

I believe he could see something of my thoughts in the stiffness of my stance, and in my eyes. I wasn't quite sure what he could read there; I wasn't even sure of what I felt myself. I could see concern and something like fear in his.

His hand twitched as though he wanted to reach out to me. He couldn't, of course. Instead, he lit his cigarette, and stood there with one hand in his pocket, slouched up against the side of the cabin. The difference between this truculent gangster and the man I knew was painful.

"Smoke?" said the other man, nudging the packet towards me.

"No, thank you."

"Suit yourself." He shrugged and turned away.

Ray was still looking at me, his eyes wary. They were the only part of him which wasn't playing the role. I stood a few feet away, my hands behind my back and my throat tight and uncomfortable. Of all those horrible days of bribes and backsheesh, this was by far the worst.

Finally, Tupper came back with the other man. He grinned at me and patted the pocket of his uniform jacket. Something to share with Officer Bowell and me later.

"Thank you for your cooperation, gentlemen. Have a nice day." He beamed around at them all, as though expecting to be wished a nice day in return.

I tore my gaze away from Ray, and followed Tupper back to the launch.

When I returned home that evening, Ray was sitting on the stoop, waiting for me. He climbed to his feet as I approached, and stood there silently. His face was solemn, and unusually still. I had the feeling he knew exactly what I was about to say.

Or rather what I was planning to say, what I knew I ought to say. I should say _This was a mistake_...

My throat was clenched shut, though, over the sick feeling in my stomach.

Before I could speak, Ray did.

"Fraser, listen. I got an idea. I thought -- what do you think -- we could go out of town sometime." He was animated now, eager, hopeful. "We could drive up north, spend the day in the forest." He was talking fast, as though scared to let me speak. "Set out early in the morning, in the middle of the night almost. I can get a car -- I know someone who'll lend me a car. Spend the whole day up there, even sleep up there, I don't know. You're the guy knows about sleeping outdoors, you're the expert.

I could only stare. A day in the wild, in the open air, a day with Ray. I could see he wanted desperately to give me whatever would please me the most, and that made my stomach turn, even while it warmed my heart.

I stood there, just looking at him. Looking at the familiar hunch of his shoulders, the tan coat that flapped whenever he moved. The flat cap, crushing down the hair I knew would spring up as soon as he removed the cap. His dear face, with the lines I had come to know so well. Lines of wariness and defensiveness, which relaxed sometimes, when we were curled up together in bed. Lines of laughter, lines I wanted to add to.

Ray was still staring into my eyes, seeking I knew not what. His whole body was sketched in lines of tension.

"So you'll come? I mean, we're going?"

I found myself nodding.

Ray's face lit up with a smile, and I couldn't help responding in kind.

"Thank you, Ray. I -- I'd like that very much."

"Great," he said, and he was still smiling as he followed me inside.

That night we didn't talk. Ray seemed to have instinctively understood what I had been thinking, at least in part. He seemed to need to cling to me, just as much as I to him. We fell into each other's arms. Kissing and touching turned rapidly into biting and grasping. I was voracious -- insatiable. I hauled him roughly down onto the bedroll with me, and began to scrabble at his clothes, desperate for proof that he was really here.

Ray seemed to ache for the same thing. He was all lust and grim desperation. His hands were rough all over me. I clung to his lips like a drowning man, and pressed myself against him, seeking the warmth where our bodies touched.

It wasn't enough, and I rolled over, pulling him on top of me, so that I would feel his weight pressing me down, reassuring me of his presence, holding me in place. Ray's head was buried in the crook of my neck, and I couldn't see his face. But I could feel the tight squeeze of his arms around me, and I knew he knew just as well as I did how fragile was this thing we had between us.

.. .. ..

6\. Sunshine

Three weeks later, Ray arrived in the late evening as we had planned, and the next morning we rose at dawn.

It was a novel experience, to sit opposite Ray at my little kitchen table that morning, and know that he would be with me all day. He wouldn't be leaving in a few minutes for Chicago, or letting me hurry him out before I quickly prepared for work.

He seemed to feel the changed atmosphere between us too. He sat over his coffee, glancing up at me every so often, his lips spreading into a grin every time.

I slid my hand out across the table and took his, and gave it a little squeeze. Then I gathered together the breakfast things, and took them across to the sink to wash them before we left. Out of the corner of my eyes, I watched Ray give himself a little shake, and get to his feet, rubbing at bleary eyes. He saw me watching him, and gave me a self-deprecating grin.

"Okay, okay, you can have first turn at the wheel. I'm not really awake yet, am I?"

"No, I was just -- " How to express the warm feeling in my chest at the thought of a whole day out in the open, with Ray. "This was a good idea of yours."

"You think so, huh?"

He shook himself awake, and shuffled his way over to the chair where I'd laid our clothes the night before. He started pulling his on, still grinning to himself.

I had spent the past three weeks alternately deciding to follow my heart or to follow my head. Now that Ray was here again, there was no question about it. All I wanted was to be with him. I wasn't going to think about the future, about my duty, about anything, but just enjoy each day we had, one day at a time.

Ray had borrowed a car somewhere. Apparently it was something called a Packard Roadster, and apparently I should have been impressed by that. It was probably stuffed full of false bottoms and hidden compartments; I deliberately didn't look to see.

I had only driven a few times before, but it's really very simple, once the roads are clear and one keeps to a reasonable speed.

Ray slept in the seat beside me on the way out of Windsor. He woke up as soon as we cleared Detroit, and started driving north. He was quiet at first, but after some time I could hear him shifting around in his seat, and tapping his fingers. Finally, he burst out,

"What is this, Fraser?"

I didn't like to take my eyes of the road in order to glance at him, so I simply made an enquiring sound. 

"This. What is this? You call this driving?"

I slowed down in order to take a rather sharp bend in safety.

"Well, I don't really know what else to call it, Ray."

He snorted, but fell silent for a while. That didn't stop him fidgeting, however. Usually I enjoyed the challenge of trying to keep him entertained, but today I was loathe to take my attention off the road.

After an hour he insisted on stopping to relieve himself, and if certain remarks about the amount of coffee he'd drunk came to mind, I didn't voice them. I was just grateful for the opportunity to suggest he take the wheel.

I had been worried that his odd, snippy mood was the sign of something ominous. As soon as we set off again, though, it became clear that Ray simply had a problem with other people driving. Now he was whistling, and even prompting me to tell him about the flora and fauna of the regions we were passing through. I relaxed. Perhaps this day was going to turn out as well as it had begun after all.

We reached the forest a few hours before noon. I carried the tent, and Ray the rest of the equipment, what little there was of it. I felt rather underequipped, but it wasn't as though we were going on a week-long patrol in the Yukon, after all.

It was wonderful to be out in the open, for the first time since I had been sent to Windsor. I suppose I could have gone by myself before then, begged or borrowed a car somewhere and driven north, but I never did. Self-inflicted misery, perhaps.

Ray set off at high speed from the place we'd parked the car. He clearly had no idea how to pace himself for a long trek, but I let him be. It wasn't as though we had to actually be anywhere in particular by this evening.

I watched him walking out ahead of me, passing from sunshine to shade to sunshine, the trees dappling his back with shadows and light. He went bare-headed as soon as we were out of the crowded areas. He hated hats, as he'd often said. His hair seemed to hate them too. It was always flattened down when he took off his hat, making me want to run my fingers through it and bring it back to the state it was in when he'd just woken up.

He had also replaced his town shoes by a pair of leather boots, and that did strange things to my insides that I couldn't quite put into words.

He turned back, and caught me staring. I cleared my throat, and pointed out some white pine and Jack pine, as well as the ubiquitous sugar maple.

After a while we took off our jackets and vests, as the temperature rose. Ray rolled up his shirt sleeves, revealing his forearms. He was walking alongside me now, and the smell of sweat and his warm skin made me lightheaded.

The sun was high in the sky by the time we stopped for lunch. We had reached a break in the trees, on a little hillock above the shores of a lake. I spread out my groundsheet, Ray got out the sandwiches and water bottles, and we sat down. Somehow we ended up at opposite ends of the groundsheet.

We sat there looking at each other for a moment. Then Ray scooted toward me, and I scooted toward him, so that we were sitting side-by-side, shoulders touching. He held out a sandwich, and I took it with a smile.

We ate in silence, looking out across the lake. I could hear nothing but sounds that gladdened my heart: birds, crickets, leaves rustling in the trees. Ray breathing softly beside me.

In the evening we found a suitable place to pitch the tent Ray had borrowed. We were comfortably tired after walking all day, and it was good to be lying down with Ray.

I reached out to brush a hand down his cheek. 

"Thank you, Ray. This was a wonderful idea."

He shifted uncomfortably. He never did like being thanked. "Yeah, sure."

By the light of the electric lamp on the ground at our heads, I could see the outlines of his face, cast into areas of sharp contrast, his hair soft and reddish-yellow, and deep shadows under his nose and chin. His eyes were in shadow, but his lips were smiling at me.

"You tired?" he said.

"I don't believe I'm so tired I'm going to fall asleep straight away," I said, sliding a little closer to him.

He grinned at that, and reached out for me.

Ray was unforgettable that night. He was all fire and fierce tenderness, and I loved him for it. I closed my eyes and let the sensation of him wash over me. Strong fingers touching me, digging into my shoulder as though they'd never let go. Warmth where he pressed down on top of me, where his body met mine. Incoherent words muttered in my ear, and soft sloppy kisses leading away down my jawbone.

I opened my eyes just before I closed my hand around him so that I could see his face, eyelids fluttering shut, mouth open just enough for me feel the rush of air against my cheek as he gasped for breath. The muscles in his shoulders rippled in the light of the lantern as they strained to support his moving weight. 

I held him, squeezed him, let him pump into my hand as his mouth blindly sought mine. Then I could feel his skin, smooth and sweat-slick against mine as he slid down my body, purposefully.

Soon, all I was aware of were strong hands and a warm, wet mouth, sucking and teasing me until I trembled with the effort of holding back.

He raised his head and moved to whisper into my ear, stroking me now, harder and faster than I could stand. "Ben. Ben, come on, let go."

Afterwards, Ray cleaned us up with his undershirt, and tossed it down the end of the tent, before coming back to plant a kiss on the top of my head, and curl up beside me.

The night air was cool and we were covered in sweat, but we weren't in any danger here in these temperate climes. All I had to do was pull the blankets back over us, and we were safe.

It was the first time I had slept in a tent since I was sent undercover. Just for a moment, I wondered what it would be like to have Ray with me, on patrol or on a hike in the Yukon. I pushed that thought away, and settled down to sleep.

Ray was curled up behind me now, and I could feel him breathing on the back of my neck.

"Fraser?" 

I had been on the point of falling asleep, but I stirred at the sound of his voice.

"You know, I wasn't always -- I had other jobs before, did other stuff. I didn't always used to do what I do now."

I managed not to stiffen. I just lay there without moving. _Not now, please not now._ I hadn't thought about this all day, and I didn't want to be reminded of it now.

Ray was still talking in the same quiet voice, almost whispering.

"And I was thinking, you know, maybe in the future things might change, and, uh -- " He came to a stop. "I was thinking, maybe, you and me, we -- "

I didn't move. I didn't want to talk about a future I knew we didn't have.

"Benton? You asleep?"

He must surely have been able to tell I wasn't. But he didn't say anything more. After a very long time, I heard his breathing slow, and he was finally asleep.

We drove home in the evening of the following day.

I was reluctant to spoil the memory I knew that day would become, a memory of dappled spreads of pine needles and the hum of crickets and Ray's ever-present smile. As I watched him leave for Chicago, though, I decided that I couldn't keep this up any longer. Next time, I was going to tell him the truth.

It was around that time, though, that I was informed of the big operation about to be launched against Capone's operation in Detroit.

.. .. ..

7\. Shadows

When I got back to Chicago after our couple of days in the woods, I knew straight off that someone had been in my room. Stuff was moved around, drawers were closed that I'd left open, and the top of the dresser was tidier than it had been since I moved into the place a year before. Plus, they'd left a note.

I knew who it was before I even read the note. The good old guys from the Bureau of Prohibition. No one else used that cheap and nasty blue paper, the same that had filled the files they made me bone up on before sending me undercover. So first I messed up my room a bit, got it back the way I liked it. Then I looked at the note.

No surprises there: meet such a guy on such a street corner, at eight the next day. It meant the Feds were making a move on the mob, and in a couple of weeks' time I probably wouldn't be undercover anymore.

I just stood there for a couple of minutes, holding the note. I had this weird, tight feeling in my chest, like I wasn't getting enough air to breathe.

Six months ago, I'd been dying to get this news. It couldn't have come soon enough. Now, though -- 

I crumpled up the note and threw it in the grate.

So the next evening, there I was, sitting in a dusty little office in a cheap apartment building, watching one of the Feds pour me a drink. He was someone I vaguely remembered from a year ago. The other guy I didn't know at all, but he was pretty much identical to the first one: dull brown suits and brown fedoras. They could easily have passed for two accountants, like what was marked on the office door. 

"So, Mancini's broad's birthday bash," the first guy said, handing me a glass. "Tell us about it."

I shrugged. "It's her birthday, Mancini rules the roost in Detroit now, and he wants to throw a party, so -- that's what he does. He's got a shitload of booze coming in from Windsor for it... Guess that's all I know."

"You'll be there, on the door," the second guy said.

I said nothing. Yeah, great, course they knew all about it already, what did they need me for? I hadn't even known I was going to be there myself yet.

"You'll be on the ground, along with several other undercover agents, and when we make our move -- " And yeah, I had already figured out that the Feds were going to sweep down on the birthday party, what with, you know, all the questions about it, and all the gangsters being gathered together in one place. " -- you'll stay on the door, except now you won't be letting anyone out, instead of not letting them in. Got it?"

They were the masterminds, and I was supposed to be just the flatfoot who says _Got it, boss,_ but I couldn't resist asking, "How'll you get into the building in the first place?"

For some reason he looked dead smug all of a sudden.

"You'll see. All I can say is, I think you'll like our idea."

The other guy got all indignant at that.

"It was our idea, actually."

That made no sense to me, until he went on, "I really can't let the US take the credit on this one."

Suddenly I copped that the other guy was Canadian. I didn't like that too much. I had my own reasons for not liking it.

"This a joint operation, then?" I said. "I mean, arrests in Windsor as well as Detroit?"

They didn't even turn their heads. Too busy looking daggers at each other.

"I think you'll find the original idea -- "

" -- hey, hey, wait a minute -- "

I didn't pay any attention to the argument. I was too busy thinking about Fraser. I was going to warn him, as soon as I possibly could. I didn't care.

" -- yeah, you slay me. As if you could ever come up with something like this -- "

" -- no, that ain't how it happened at all -- "

I let them get on with it, and poured myself another glass of scotch.

"So you see, you can't say -- "

"Hey look, the whole plan would never work if it weren't for _my_ agent in the Customs Office in Windsor, right?"

I started paying attention again pretty damn quickly.

"Yeah, whatever," the Fed was saying. "You lucked out, that's all."

There was someone undercover in the Customs Office in Windsor. Some Canadian cop in the Customs Office. Suddenly everything was clear -- and my head was clouding up.

"Kowalski!" someone was saying, and I suddenly realized I didn't know how long I'd been sitting there with my head spinning.

It was the Fed, frowning at me.

"Kowalski, you got that?"

I shook my head to clear it, and his frown deepened, so I said quickly, "Yeah, right. Stay on the door, don't let anyone out."

"No, I said keep your ears open for whatever you can pick up about the Mancini birthday party, and report back here this time next week."

I repeated that back to him until he seemed satisfied, and I could escape.

I got home and found Wojek waiting for me on the front step of my boarding house.

"Detroit tomorrow," he said, leering at me.

What the hell was the leer for? Oh yeah, right, I was supposed to have a girl in Windsor.

I got rid of him, and went to lie on my bed in my little boarding house room, and stare at the ceiling. I seemed to have been doing way too much of that since I met Fraser.

I wasn't really surprised, oddly enough. Little things about Fraser made sense now that hadn't before. I was shocked though. Shocked but not surprised, yeah, that sounded about right. You bet it was a shock, thinking that Fraser... well, that Fraser was just as bad as I was. Just as big a liar as I was.

Now I understood why he was so odd and standoffish at times. Now I knew why he'd never wanted to discuss the future, or the past. Now I got how someone as damn straight and upright as Fraser could take bribes and hang around with mobsters... hang around with me.

I should have been happy Fraser wasn't going down with the rest of the crooked Customs guys, but I just felt sick. So all that whole -- that whole thing we had was just him doing his job, I guess. That's what being undercover is all about, after all. Worming your way into people's confidences, getting up close and personal until they'll tell you whatever you want to know.

I couldn't blame him. He'd never promised me anything, after all. But my stomach was burning.

..

The next day Wojek and me drove to Detroit. It was the following morning by the time I managed to slip away. I went to see Fraser at work, partly because I couldn't bear to wait any longer and partly because I didn't want this to end in his apartment. Stupid, yeah, I know, but I kinda wanted to hang onto those memories I had of Fraser and me there. Didn't want them getting messed up in my head with what was about to happen now.

There was no one in the Customs Office, but it only took me a couple of minutes to find Fraser. He was by himself in the middle of one of the warehouses. Looked like he was inventorying a seizure of smuggled goods. There were crates stacked up all around him, and he was frowning down at a clipboard, his tongue between his teeth.

Part of me wanted to just stand there and look at him, one last time. He'd heard me coming in, though, and he looked up. His face was a hell of a sight: surprise, pleasure and concern having a knock-down fight over his expression.

"Ray!" He came towards me. "Has something happened?"

I spoke quickly, before he could get too close.

"Fraser, I know."

His eyebrows rose. Concern had won the battle over his expression, but he obviously had no clue what I was talking about. I pushed on.

"I know you're a cop. You say cop too, right? In the RCMP?"

The light wasn't great in the warehouse, but I could see he'd gone a sort of greyish color. He didn't say anything, and neither did I.

For a moment there, I thought maybe he was shook up because he was thinking of us, me and him, what this meant for us. Then I realized he was probably just worried for his undercover gig.

"No one else knows," I said hastily. "I mean, your cover isn't blown or anything. Your... whatever operation you're running isn't derailed."

He was still standing there, frozen, still clutching his pen and clipboard like they were all he had left in the world.

"So, guess you, uh, were acting under orders, right?" I couldn't help giving a laugh, though the laugh sounded strange and bitter to my ears. "Though I guess they said something about making friends, not fucking, right?" 

He hardly seemed to be listening to me.

"Ray, I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

I shook my head, trying to get the words together to tell him he had nothing to be sorry for, that I had done my own share of lying. Or maybe he meant he wasn't just sorry for lying, but for leading me on?

I felt like I should be angry with him, and myself, but I was just sick. I should tell him I was a cop too. I had meant to do that right away, but I couldn't get the words out. I really didn't want to talk about this at all. Just wanted to get out of there, cut my losses. Forgive and forget.

Fraser was still talking. "I'm a constable in the RCMP. Constable Benton Fraser. Twelve months ago I was posted here to -- well -- " 

He stopped short, like he had only just realized he was about to confess everything to a mobster.

I took a step forward. 

"Fraser, I'm not -- "

He took a step back.

"Ray, I -- Ten years ago, I fell in love."

That brought me up short.

We stood there in the dim light, feet apart. Fraser began to speak in a low voice.

"She robbed a bank in Anchorage with two men, and came across the border on horseback. But they must have gotten lost... they turned north, and you know, it's not horse country. By the time I tracked them down, the two men and the horses were dead, and she was huddled in a tiny cleft in the rocks, on the lee side of a mountain, almost frozen to death. And a storm was closing in around us. I staked a lean-to with my rifle and my coat, and drew her inside, holding her close and warming her body with mine.

"We lay like that for a day...and a night...and a day, and there were times when I was sure we had already died. But the storm broke, and we were still alive.

"It took us four days to reach the nearest town. We camped that night just outside the town, and we -- " He swallowed. "We lay in each other's arms, and she asked me to let her go."

I knew already what answer he must have given.

He turned away, looking out across the shadows. 

"She died in prison. Even that, I only found out by accident."

I could see he was trying his heart out to bottle up emotions. I could see it in the way his face was all stiff and wooden. He turned back to face me.

"I loved her, and I sent her to gaol. I can't do that again, Ray."

And that, right there -- that got me. I stared, open-mouthed. _I loved her. I love you._

I wanted to say, _Me too, Ben._ I wanted to say, _Forever._ I wanted to wipe that horrible cut-up look right off his face. And I could, but it would be only to replace that look by another just as bad. No one was going to gaol, but no one was living happily ever after either. What I had to say wasn't exactly going to make him smile. 

So instead of saying _I love you,_ I said, "I'm a cop."

He stared.

"I'm a cop," I said again. "Chicago PD."

He made an odd sort of noise, and stood there with his mouth making a funny little 'O' of surprise.

"No one's going to gaol, Ben," I said, as though that were the only problem here.

"A policeman," he said, in a horrible, flat voice.

I rubbed at my head, feeling suddenly exhausted.

"I'm not Komarek, I'm Kowalski. Stanley Raymond Kowalski. I been undercover, kind of on loan to the Bureau of Prohibition... year and a half, now." I wanted to reach out and touch him. "And I'm sorry too, Ben. For what little that's worth."

I wanted to suggest we start all over again. Pretend no one had lied, there'd been no deception. But the world doesn't work like that, of course.

Part of me felt like if we really -- really _knew_ each other, really had something going on between us, then we should have been able to see right through each other's disguises. Or something. But the world doesn't work like that either.

Fraser was still standing there like a statue. I noticed that he'd let his pen and clipboard fall at some point. I wanted to go up and throw my arms around him. 

"So, you know, don't guilt out about lying to me, because you weren't the only one."

He shook his head, but I didn't know what that meant. He still looked pretty shell-shocked.

"Um, Fraser, maybe -- " I began, at the same time as he said, "That doesn't -- "

We both stopped, and I let him go on.

"That doesn't excuse my own deception."

It was my turn to shake my head. "Forget it, Fraser. Don't worry about it."

And I didn't know what I meant, exactly. If I meant: forget us. Forget everything. I didn't know what Fraser was feeling. Some part of me still thought maybe we could patch this up. I mean, what's a couple of lies between friends?

"All right, Ray," he said, looking away, and I guess that answered the question.

"So I guess I should... probably go now," I said.

I didn't want to leave things just like that, but I had no idea how to take everything that was churning around inside me and turn it into words.

"Listen, uh," I took a breath. "I couldn't have sent you to gaol either, Benton."

That got me one of those smiles that don't have anything at all to do with happiness.

"Thank you, Ray."

And okay, that's not exactly what people usually say when you tell them you love them. But at least I knew I'd said something right.

"Okay, so -- good bye, then."

"Good bye, Ray."

.. .. ..

8\. Dark

Two weeks later, I was back in that same warehouse, without Ray. Instead, I was accompanied by four RCMP constables, two sergeants, an inspector and fifty officers from the American Bureau of Prohibition.

"This is Constable Fraser," Inspector Abbott said. "He's been our man on the ground here for the past year or so."

I shook hands with the most senior American present, while the others stood around behind him and eyed the wine barrels that filled this corner of the warehouse. They looked rather apprehensive, and I'll admit I was feeling the same way.

The inspector laid his hand on top of one of the barrels.

"So, here they are," he said jovially. "Emptied, of course."

Empty, indeed... because the barrels were destined for Sonny Mancini's party, and the idea was that each of us would climb inside one of them, to emerge on the other side of the river, right in the middle of the party.

"The constable here has temporarily impounded them," Abbot went on. "So we have until -- "

He looked inquiringly at me. 

"Nineteen hundred hours, sir."

"Excellent," he said, rubbing his hands together, as though he were looking forward to spending several hours inside a barrel. I wasn't, personally. I wondered whether the intoxicating effect of ethanol vapor on the officers had been taken into account when this plan was finalized.

Of course I had already spent ten hours inside the hide of a caribou, which had its own particular odor, so I ought to be well equipped to deal with the challenge.

I was a little woozy for the first few minutes after we emerged from our fume-filled hiding places into the cellar of Mancini's riverfront hotel. I straightened the bow-tie that was part of my disguise, tugged on the front of my tuxedo, and followed the others as we slipped one by one out of the cellar and through the hotel to the ballroom.

The ballroom was crowded with dancers and surrounded by small tables at which other party-goers drank and ate and watched the crowd. The room was filled with the sounds of glasses clinking and people laughing, almost drowning out the valiant efforts of the jazz band in the corner. There must have been close to a hundred people in the room. I wondered what proportion of them were undercover police officers, like Ray.

Ray. 

The apprehension, or perhaps anticipation, I had been feeling about this day had had really very little to do with the possible success or failure of the operation, or the risk to my own life. It had a lot, however, to do with the fact that I might see Ray again.

I had spent the past two weeks deliberately not thinking about Ray -- which, of course, amounted in practice to thinking about little else. There was no real coherence to my thoughts, no ideas about how he or I might have acted differently, or what that might have changed. There was just a dull pain in the pit of my stomach, and the cold comfort of knowing I had done my duty and maintained my cover.

I found my appointed place near the northernmost exit from the room, and stood with my back to the wall, watching the crowd and waiting for the signal. I had plenty to watch: gangsters in pale-colored summer suits and girls in long, straight dresses that were nothing like the practical skirts my grandmother used to wear.

Ray had spent eighteen months undercover with the people in this crowd, months of lying to them -- and to me. That wasn't what hurt so much, though. I could forgive Ray in an instant. I already had.

Suddenly, Mancini and his five closest henchmen had guns to their heads, the room was ringed with federal officers, firearms drawn, and one of them was shouting, "Police. Nobody move."

After a split second of silence, the room broke out in a sudden bustle of movement and noise, as the party-goers began to duck for cover, and the American officers began to handcuff people left, right and center.

I concentrated on my own task, that of escorting handcuffed prisoners out to the police cars that should even now be drawing up outside.

Then the first shot rang out.

My prisoners dived to the ground. Behind us, pandemonium had broken out. Shots ricocheted off the walls and shattered the glass chandeliers. To my horror, after a moment I heard machine gun fire. I hustled my chain of handcuffed prisoners to their feet, and began hurrying them out of the room as best I could.

We had almost reached the back entrance to the hotel when we ran into disaster. Our path was blocked by a man with a machine gun in hand, pointing at my head.

This hadn't been part of the plan: I'd been told that all the men on the doors had been replaced by police officers. But clearly very little was going according to plan tonight. I had a sudden flash of longing to be back in the Territories already, where I depended on no one but myself, and only suffered from my own mistakes.

I had a gun in my hand and a license to use it, but I only had _one_ gun, and it was trained on my prisoners. For a moment we stood there, frozen in that tableau.

Then I caught sight of Ray, ten meters away, crouched half-hidden beside the back door. His revolver was open and he was fumbling in his pocket for bullets.

"Nice to see you, Wojek," one of the prisoners said, flashing a grin at the man with the machine gun. He turned back to me. "Drop the pistol, pig."

I didn't move. It was this particular prisoner my gun was trained on, as a matter of fact. I had already identified him as being the most senior.

Behind him, Ray looked up, caught my eye, and held up one finger. _Give me a minute._

"One moment, please," I said. "Perhaps you would like me to find the keys to the handcuffs before shooting me?"

"Uh -- " said the man with the machine gun, looking to his boss for guidance.

Ray was standing up now, and patting his elbow, staring at me. I understood.

I was holding my breath now, because surely it was only a matter of time before one of the prisoners -- and yes, indeed, one of them was frowning, and trying to raise his handcuffed arm to point at Ray.

"Hey -- "

"Oy, Wojek," Ray shouted. " _Chodz tu!_ "

Wojek started to turn, just for a fraction of a second, before he recollected himself, but that was enough for me. I shot him in the elbow, and he doubled over, the machine gun slipping from his grasp.

A minute later, Wojek had joined the line of prisoners, and I was almost out of handcuffs. Ray was grinning at me, still flushed from the speed at which he had come running up.

We had worked perfectly, like a team, like a duet, and suddenly I wondered what it would have been like to work with Ray, properly.

"We could have been so good together," I said, before I could stop myself.

He looked at me, his grin disappearing but his eyes still soft.

"Yeah."

I nodded, and we stood there for a moment, before Ray shook himself, and started in motion.

"Come on, let's get these guys out of here."

I managed to see Ray one more time before the end of the evening. He was standing by a marked police car, talking across the top of it to a uniformed officer. I only took a couple of steps forward, unsure whether I was going to approach him or not, but something made him turn.

He caught sight of me straight away, and so I came up to him, stopping a respectable two feet away.

He was leaning back on the car door, his arms spread out along the roof.

"So, I guess you're done with Windsor, then?"

I nodded. "I've requested a posting in the Northwest Territories."

That got me a little smile.

"Hey, that's great."

I nodded again. After all, it _was_ great, wasn't it?

"You?"

"What, me?" He shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe I'll go undercover again somewhere else."

His mouth twitched again, in that smile of his that always took a few seconds to flicker into place. I had lain in his arms and loved that smile. 

For a second, part of me hated the RCMP, hated my responsibilities. Most of all I hated the fact that I knew in my heart that if I could start all over again with Ray, I would do things precisely the same way. I would lie to him, because it was my duty. Our house of dreams had been broken apart, and how could we now build anything good on top of its foundations of deception?

The other cop was in the driver's seat now, and he sounded his horn, hurrying Ray along.

Ray gave me one last look, and God, I knew exactly how he felt. Then he got into the car, and they drove away. I was left with a wound that even the thought of seeing Dief again soon couldn't heal.

.. .. ..

10\. Snow

Wow, the sky was huge above me. I hadn't even known the world could look that big, or the sky could be so crisp and blue. On the ground, as far out as I could see, everything was white and weirdly smooth, the details of the landscape whitewashed out by the snow.

I turned back to the only sign of civilization there was around: the widely spaced wooden posts that marked out the path, sticking up out of the snow here and there. Me, I was on snowshoes. I'd gotten pretty good on the old snowshoes over the past two days.

It had taken me a week and a half to get here from Chicago, and some part of me had never really thought I was gonna make it. But here I was. I really was. The cold wind biting at the tip of my nose was real enough, anyway.

I had spent so many nights lying with Fraser in his apartment in Windsor, and listening to him talk about the north, and its icefields that blended into the Arctic Ocean. I had spent two years lying alone and dreaming about them.

Now I was tramping up the pathway the postmaster in Norman Wells had pointed out to me, and in half an hour or so, I'd be meeting the man who wrote the crumpled-up letter I had in my pocket.

I'd waited -- God, I'd been waiting a long time. I'd waited almost two years for that letter. I knew it had to be Fraser who made the first move, and most of the time I didn't think he ever would.

I stopped at the crest of a sort of hillock to catch my breath. In a couple of minutes, maybe, I'd be able to see the cabin already. My hand went automatically to the pocket that held the letter. I'd been carrying it around every day for the past month. The letter itself, in fact, was dated two months before that. I got the feeling it had been rewritten a hell of a lot of times before it got sent.

_Ray,_

_I write this without knowing whether it will ever even reach you. I cannot but hope that it does, and that a surname and a profession were enough to identify you. I write because I cannot help myself, and because I have some hope you still remember me._

_I remember you, indeed I don't believe I shall ever forget you. I hope you know that if I felt I had to leave you after those months of deception, it was never you I couldn't forgive but myself. I don't know if that will ever change, but I do know that I missed you every day of the past two years. I think if maybe you can forgive me, that might be enough._

_I'm afraid I must sound terribly presumptuous, but I can't seem to manage to express myself any other way._

_Best wishes,_  
Benton Fraser  


I'd spent days pouring over that letter, piecing together the ghosts of all the words he'd ruthlessly deleted, and the invitation he couldn't screw up the -- what was it? -- the presumptuousness to write. Then I threw in the day job, and headed north.

There was an address at the top of the letter, and it was the address of the cabin I was just coming up on.

There was a wolf lying on the steps in front of the cabin, looking at me suspiciously. Okay, right, wolves can't be suspicious, I know that. But this one sure as hell looked it.

Then Fraser stepped out the front door, carrying a bucket. He dropped it when he saw me, and water flowed down the steps in front of him, turning into ice.

I couldn't exactly go running up to him, but I did my best, stomping up on my snowshoes. Fraser jumped over the icy steps, and came to meet me, his boots sinking into the snow when he tried to run.

Finally, we were in each other's arms, an awkward tangle, what with my huge coat and pack. Fraser was kissing every exposed bit of me he could, so basically my nose and my eyebrows.

"You came," he said. "God, you came."

I squeezed him tighter, patting at him with my gloved hands, reassuring myself that the solid bulk of him was really there. "Course I came, Fraser." Finally I let go of him, and jerked my head towards his cabin. "Come on, Fraser. Wanna start over again?"

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... most of the historical stuff is as accurate as I could make it. Or, let's say, as accurate as movies made at the time were ;) What can I say -- I like watching old documentaries! I did take a few liberties with history, not least of which was that it doesn't make much sense to have characters called Stanley Kowalski or Diefenbaker in 1930 :P
> 
> Tuktoyaktuk was called Fort Brabant back then, but I ignored that. Didn't really feel I could ignore the fact that Inuvik didn't exist, though.
> 
> This story marks the first time in my life I've ever made use of the way they spent HOURS drumming into our heads at school that geese come in a 'gaggle'. Now I just have to find a practical use for 'a school of whales', 'a dray of squirrels', 'a murder of crows', or 'a pride of lions'...


End file.
